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Welcome to June. BEHIND THE CURTAIN: For those pining for an Obama Doctrine victory for the president, here it is: “Don't Do Stupid Shit.” Playbook rarely prints a four-letter word -- our nephews are loyal readers. But we are, in this case, because that is the precise phrase President Obama and his aides are using in their off-the-record chats with journalists.

If the aim was to get this phrase in circulation to define the Obama doctrine, mission accomplished! It appeared in the L.A. Times at the end of Obama’s Asia trip this spring, was reprised in the lead story of Thursday’s New York Times, and is used TWICE in today’s NYT -- once in the news columns, and once in a column by Tom Friedman, who was part of an off-the-record roundtable with Obama on Tuesday:

--MARK LANDLER on p. 4, “White House Memo: In Obama’s Speeches, a Shifting Tone on Terror”: “In his second term, a time that presidents typically set about cementing their legacies as statesmen, Mr. Obama has instead settled on a minimalist foreign policy — one that he laid out at West Point and sums up with a saltier version of the phrase, ‘don’t do stupid stuff.’ ‘There is a fundamental and profound distinction between this speech and the earlier speeches,’ said David J. Rothkopf, the publisher of Foreign Policy magazine. ‘The Nobel Prize speech was infused with hope, ambition, and the desire to better the world. This speech is built around the idea of not doing stupid stuff.’” http://goo.gl/ZUbKcM

--THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, on SundayReview p. 11, “Obama’s Foreign Policy Book: Here are a few working titles for the president’s consideration”: “When President Obama sits down to write his foreign policy memoir he may be tempted to use as his book title the four words he reportedly uses privately to summarize the Obama doctrine: ‘Don’t Do Stupid Stuff’ (with ‘stuff’ sometimes defined more spicily).” http://goo.gl/GCHKjT

--WHAT’S CLEAR is that the White House is pushing this line hard, and effectively. What’s not clear is how a high school cliché will help successfully define a foreign policy that many on the right and left find soft and uninspired.

--FLASHBACK 1 – Dylan Byers on Tuesday, “Obama holds private lunch with foreign policy journalists”: “President Obama held a private ninety-minute lunch meeting with foreign policy journalists on Tuesday … Over a chicken lunch in the Roosevelt Room, the president led a wide-ranging discussion on Afghanistan, his forthcoming commencement speech at West Point, and other foreign policy matters with the likes of Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, E.J. Dionne and Jeffrey Goldberg.” http://goo.gl/LqukOG

--FLASHBACK 2: Mark Landler, in the lead story of Thursday’s Times: “In private conversations, the president has used a saltier variation of the phrase, ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ — brushing aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.” http://goo.gl/WG20of

--FLASHBACK 3: Christi Parsons, Kathleen Hennessey and Paul Richter in the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune of April 29: “The president's aides have scrambled to put things in simpler terms. ‘Don't do stupid stuff’ is the polite-company version of a phrase they use to describe the president's foreign policy.”

--FLASHBACK 4: Christi Parsons and Kathleen Hennessey in the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune last Sunday: “Privately, White House officials have described the working label for Obama's doctrine as ‘Don't do stupid stuff.’ Within the tight circle of foreign policy aides in the White House, the shorthand captured Obama's resistance to a rigid catch-all doctrine, as well as his aversion to what he once called the ‘dumb war’ in Iraq.”

--FLASHBACK 5: Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune editorial board, in Thursday’s paper: “Instead of trying to do great things, he's settled for a policy that his aides summarize as ‘Don't do stupid stuff’ -- though they use a different word than ‘stuff.’” http://goo.gl/bPPaS6

--FLASHBACK 6: In February, The Columbian newspaper of Vancouver, Wash., reported that it kept selling out of “Don't Do Stupid Stuff” mugs. http://goo.gl/9oQ8d3

BREAKING – “Lewis Katz, co-owner of The Inquirer, dies in plane crash” – Philly Inquirer: “Lewis Katz, 72, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily News and Philly.com, died Saturday night in the crash of a private jet at a Massachusetts airfield. … All seven people were killed aboard the private aircraft that crashed at Hanscom Field and erupted into a fireball … The Gulfstream IV crashed about 9:40 p.m. Saturday as it was departing for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey …

“The Boston Globe reported that Katz had attended an event in Concord, Mass., Saturday afternoon at the home of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, Richard Goodwin. NBC10 was reporting that one of the passengers was Anne Leeds, 74, the wife of Longport commissioner Jim Leeds. Leeds told the Atlantic City Press that Katz had invited his wife, a former teacher, to the fundraiser in support of an education program created by the Goodwins' son Michael in the Concord Carlisle schools.

“On Tuesday, Katz and H.F. ‘Gerry’ Lenfest bought out their partners for $88 million, gaining control of the media company that owns the Inquirer.” http://goo.gl/I3wwVt

CHRIS WALLACE, on “Fox News Sunday”: “By the way, national security adviser Susan Rice is appearing on two Sunday Shows today [ABC’s ‘This Week’ and CNN’s ‘State of the Union’], but the White House still has not made her available to us since we interviewed her back in September of 2012, just five days after the Benghazi attack.”

SUNDAY BEST – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, from Bagram Air Base near Kabul in Afghanistan, to David Gregory on “Meet the Press”: “I want to congratulate … all who had something to do with this. But also to thank the emir of Qatar, the Qatari government, and all the people in Qatar who helped make this occur. The transaction really was done by the Qatar government and the emir's commitment to getting that accomplished. We facilitated that in different ways. But in the interest of our own intelligence and procedures, I don't want to go much further than that.”

DAVID GREGORY: “[D]oes this pave the way for perhaps a new round of negotiations with the Taliban, directly between the United States and the Taliban, about the Taliban's future in running Afghanistan?”

HAGEL: “Well, it could, it might, and we hope it will present an opening. As you know, we have strongly supported an Afghan-led effort to come to an agreement with the Taliban. As you know, we had engaged with the Taliban up until 2012. They broke off those negotiations. We've had no formal relationship since then. So maybe this will be a new opening that can produce an agreement.”

DRIVING THE WEEK – “Ukraine showdown to shadow Obama in Europe,” by AFP’s Stephen Collinson: “President Obama departs Washington late Monday on a trip to Europe ringing with historic echoes … The East-West showdown over Russia's annexation of Crimea … will dominate each stop of Obama's tour to Poland, the Group of Seven summit in Belgium and France for 70th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings. On the World War II battlefields in France, there will be several potentially awkward personal encounters between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.” http://goo.gl/y43bpY

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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES – “GOP’s Obamacare fears come true,” by Kyle Cheney and Jennifer Haberkorn: “36 states rely on HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange, to enroll people in health coverage. At least two more states are opting in next year, with a few others likely to follow. Only two states are trying to get out. That’s precisely the opposite of the Affordable Care Act’s original intent: 50 exchanges run by 50 states. The federal option was supposed to be a limited and temporary fallback.

“But a shift to a bigger, more permanent Washington-controlled system is instead underway — without preparation, funding or even public discussion about what a national exchange covering millions of Americans means for the future of U.S. health care. It’s coming about because intransigent Republicans shunned state exchanges, and ambitious Democrats bungled them.” http://goo.gl/gOIwpq

BEYOND THE BELTWAY:

CA GOV – L.A. Times A1, below fold, “USC DORNSIFE/TIMES POLL: Brown’s GOP foes in dead heat: Kashkari’s ad blitz appears to help him against Donnelly in Tuesday’s primary,” by Seema Mehta and Michael Finnegan: “Half of Californians deemed likely to vote … supported Brown's reelection. Among his chief challengers, both Republicans, Neel Kashkari was far behind at 18% and Tim Donnelly trailed at 13%. The difference … was within the … margin of error. Still, Kashkari's position represented a boost from earlier public polling that showed the political neophyte and former Treasury Department official trailing Donnelly, an assemblyman from San Bernardino County. The apparent movement suggested that Kashkari's recent blitz of television ads and glossy mailers was paying dividends.” http://goo.gl/lWRZPq

IA SEN – Des Moines Sunday Register lead story, “IOWA POLL: A Register exclusive since 1943 – Ernest has big lead in GOP primary: Her support could be enough to win nomination outright,” by Jennifer Jacobs: “Self-described ‘mother, soldier, conservative’ Joni Ernst is a convincing 18 points ahead of her closest GOP rival, ‘proven business leader’ Mark Jacobs, in the Republican race for U.S. Senate … Her support from 36 percent of likely GOP primary voters, which doubles Jacobs' 18 percent, would be enough to win Tuesday's five-person primary outright. The victor needs at least 35 percent.” http://goo.gl/mJWTmg

NH SEN -- Boston Sunday Globe A1, above fold, “Brown got big stake in obscure Fla. firm: For advisory role, an award with initial worth of $1.3m,” by Noah Bierman and Todd Wallack: “An obscure company in West Palm Beach that markets itself as a firearms manufacturer made a splashy announcement last summer: It was appointing Scott Brown … to its advisory board. … Brown received stock that was worth $1.3 million at the time. Its value has declined considerably since then, as the stock price has fallen by half. … It was founded as a beauty supply company in New Jersey … before reinventing itself as a wireless data firm from California and then again last year as a South Florida-based firearms maker …

“It is the kind of company, with scant assets and a shifting business model, that some financial professionals warn investors to steer away from. The company … has churned out press releases to attract small investors … and issued millions of shares of stock … During a brief encounter after a campaign event in Hopkinton, N.H., on Saturday, Brown declined to answer questions about his involvement with the company or the level of scrutiny he applied to its business methods before agreeing to associate himself with it.” http://goo.gl/cyD6uL

NY GOV -- DE BLASIO BACKS CUOMO IN HOUR OF NEED – “Despite dustup, NY Gov Cuomo gets liberal backing,” by AP’s David Klepper in Albany: “Gov. Andrew Cuomo beat back a challenge from the left Saturday, narrowly winning the nomination of the Working Families Party with a promise to support liberal priorities while taking on state senators who have blocked them. … The governor did not appear at the convention but spoke to delegates over the phone. He promised to support liberal priorities including a minimum wage hike, the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana and public campaign financing. …

“Cuomo got a boost from [Mayor Bill] de Blasio, … who personally vouched for Cuomo and told delegates that the governor is too powerful an ally to reject.” http://goo.gl/wgsdcO

--BEING THERE – “WFP leaders urge skeptical members to support Cuomo,” by Capital New York’s Laura Nahmias: “Emma Wolfe, a top aide to Mayor Bill De Blasio, huddled with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. … In the billiards room just off the the hotel’s foyer, state committee and party members sprawled across the hotel’s pool tables with markers and posterboard, producing anti-Cuomo signs that read ‘No to Cuomoccio’ … A popular sign, which many convention attendees had taped to their shirts, expressed skepticism of a potential deal with Cuomo. It read: ‘I am a non-believer. Do you believe?’” http://goo.gl/i97ZWA

WEEKEND WEDDING – Caitlin Dunn and Alex Conant – N.Y. Times: “Caitlin O’Connor Dunn and Roger Alexander Conant were married Saturday at the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Washington. J. Michael Fitzgerald, an uncle of the bride and a Catholic deacon, officiated, with the Rev. David M. Fitz-Patrick, a Catholic priest, taking part. Mrs. Conant, 28, is the communications director, in Washington, for Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. She graduated from Notre Dame. She is the daughter of Kathleen Fitzgerald Dunn and Robert K. Dunn of Gaithersburg, Md. The bride’s father is a loan officer in the Bethesda, Md., office of McLean Mortgage, a mortgage brokerage.

“Mr. Conant, 34, is known as Alex. He is the press secretary, in Washington, for Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican. The groom graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which he also received a master’s in public affairs. He is a son of Ingrid J. Conant and Roger R. Conant of Sunfish Lake, Minn. The groom’s mother manages two soybean and corn farms in Lime Springs, Iowa, that she owns with her husband. His father is the chairman and chief investment officer of Magni Asset Management in Minneapolis.” http://goo.gl/hxIPOy

--CAITLIN and ALEX at the Capitol, during intermission between ceremony and reception, at the Sulgrave Club on Dupont Circle (Photo courtesy Sam Smith)http://goo.gl/at8dpc

--SPOTTED: Tucker Bounds and Brittany Brammel, in from California, and Senator Rob Portman and Jane Portman, in from Ohio (celebrating Will’s graduation from Yale)